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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050242">cirrostratus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow'>rain_sleet_snow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>gathering stormclouds [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Ben Solo Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Organa, Chronic Pain, F/F, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Gift Giving, Lesbians in Space, M/M, Permanent Injury, Planet Ahch-To (Star Wars), Pre-Relationship, Prequel Trilogy As History, Religion, Religious Discussion, The Dark Side of the Force (Star Wars), The Force, porgs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:02:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,772</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050242</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I thought he would have stopped shouting by now," Rey said, turning Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber over and over in her lap. The plan had been that they would find Luke on Ahch-To, and Rey would give him back the lightsaber then, but that plan had dissolved almost the moment they set foot on the island. Rey now wished she had made Ben take the lightsaber to Luke, but his refusal - and insistence that Maz Kanata had given the lightsaber to Rey for a reason - had been very convincing at the time.</i>
</p><p>***</p><p>Rey and Lyra, reluctant witnesses to the Skywalker family drama on Ahch-To.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Solo &amp; Original Female Character(s), Cassian Andor &amp; Jyn Erso &amp; Rey, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Chewbacca &amp; Ben Solo, Chewbacca &amp; Luke Skywalker, Finn &amp; Rey (Star Wars), Jyn Erso &amp; Cassian Andor &amp; Original Female Character, Luke Skywalker &amp; Ben Solo, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Rey/Original Female Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>gathering stormclouds [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/914373</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>113</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>cirrostratus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedpencils/gifts">wickedpencils</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For wickedpencils, who survived the bar exam!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"I thought he would have stopped shouting by now," Rey said, turning Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber over and over in her lap. The plan had been that they would find Luke on Ahch-To, and Rey would give him back the lightsaber then, but that plan had dissolved almost the moment they set foot on the island. Rey now wished she had made Ben take the lightsaber to Luke, but his refusal - and insistence that Maz Kanata had given the lightsaber to Rey for a reason - had been very convincing at the time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then they had landed and climbed out of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Falcon</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and Ben had looked up and round and said "He's here somewhere, I know he is," and set off up the stairs at speed - completely leaving Rey and Lyra behind. The plan had accordingly dissolved.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Chewbacca had chased after Ben. Rey was kind of surprised that someone as old as Chewbacca could move that fast, but Wookiees were very different to humans and Chewbacca was very highly motivated. Lyra could </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>move that fast, and Rey had stayed with her for the long climb up the steep, crumbling stone cliff, following Ben and Chewbacca’s steadily disappearing figures into the mist. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra had glimpsed Luke first, a grey shape silhouetted at the top of the cliffs, and had yelled a cheery greeting in Alderaanian. Luke had promptly disappeared from sight. Ben had sworn very loudly and started to run, and Chewbacca had leaped after him. By the time Lyra and Rey had caught up, Ben was standing in the middle of a circle of small stone huts, having a furious one-sided rant at absolutely nothing. Chewbacca was searching the huts and surrounding area methodically. The occasional irritable howl indicated that he had found nothing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That had been ten minutes ago. Ben was still in full flow. He was also still talking to thin air.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey felt like he was mostly justified, but it was strange to hear Ben being so openly angry. The whole flight to Ahch-To Ben had been carefully level and understanding about his uncle's actions, the same way he was carefully polite with just about everyone except Lyra, Chewbacca, Poe, and his parents. His injury clearly still pained him, and he now wore weary little lines between his brows and at the corners of his eyes that hadn't been there before, but as irritable as it made him, he refused to snap at Rey, or at anyone else he didn't know well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra pulled a packet of sharp mints out of her pocket and offered one to Rey. Rey, who was sure she would eventually stop blushing like a child every time someone offered her food, thanked her and took the mint.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Ben has a lot of feelings about what his uncle's done," Lyra said, after a long pause. "And he must know Luke is still here and listening."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I can't see him," Rey said doubtfully. But the back of her neck was pricking strangely, the same instinct that used to warn her when people were around and watching her, whether she could see them or not.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra shrugged. "Many things are possible with the Force." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Right." Rey wrapped her arms around herself. General Organa had sent her to the quartermaster for new clothes, but when it became apparent that Rey hadn't taken much and wasn't wearing what she had taken anyway, Lyra had taken charge. Rey still didn't understand the point of all the things Lyra seemed to consider essential, or the embroideries that Lyra had sneaked onto collars, cuffs or pockets in quiet moments while they waited for Finn to come out of surgery or sat in hyperspace, but she felt unfamiliarly warm and safe when she wore them. The biting wind on Ahch-To would have been much harder to withstand without the dove-grey jacket General Organa had contributed to her wardrobe or the gloves Lyra had picked out for her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey slid a glance sideways at Lyra. Lyra didn't seem to understand the concepts of debts and favours Rey had grown up balancing on the sharp edges of; she offered kindnesses freely - Rey would call it careless if she wasn't so intentional - and never demanded payment. Her parents, whose sharp eyes and hard edges were more familiar to Rey, seemed to understand Rey better, in some ways: Lyra's father had thanked Rey very deliberately for keeping Lyra busy, and Lyra's mother had said equally deliberately that they would be in Rey's debt if she brought Lyra home from Ahch-To. Still, it was Lyra who kept adding to Rey's food stashes, and braiding her hair, and helping her pick out clothes. She'd even offered to get Kaydel to pierce Rey's ears, when Rey had tentatively admired the decorations in her own.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was nice, but it was so strange. According to Poe, not so distracted by Ben's injuries that he didn't check in on Rey, this was how Lyra liked to show friendship. Except he always called Lyra Smiley. Lyra kept telling Rey to call her Smiley, too. Rey hadn't figured out what to think about that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra caught Rey looking, and drew a different conclusion. She smiled playfully, and bumped Rey's shoulder - very lightly, telegraphing it with large, obvious movements first.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"It is getting cold sitting here. We should explore."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I thought this was… a sacred place." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Exploring isn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>sacrilege</span>
  </em>
  <span>," Lyra said. "Not according to Uncle Chirrut, who probably knows." She cast a swift glance at Ben, whose excoriations of his uncle were unravelling. Rey's heart ached in reluctant sympathy: she knew what it was like to feel left behind. "Uncle Chewbacca will take care of Ben." She gave Rey a wicked, confiding smile. "You can't tell me you're not as curious as I am."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey was desperately curious, and had been since they'd entered Ahch-To's orbit. Ben was primarily interested in locating his uncle and dragging him home, and Artoo and Chewbacca had a lot of bones to pick with Luke Skywalker - but Rey had seen the green and blue planet she had dreamed of, the cliffs, the sea, the moss and grass, and she wanted to see more. Her dreams had for some unaccountable reason left out all the porgs, but they were nice too. The whole island called to her in a melody she could hear just below the surface of the crashing sea and the whistling wind, and Rey wanted to answer.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She slid off the drystone wall they had sat down on, and held out her hand to Lyra.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Let's go."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Neither Ben nor Chewbacca made any objection to the two of them just getting up and going. Rey thought at first that Lyra had a destination in mind, but Lyra turned to her in a way that clearly indicated she expected Rey to lead.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey listened to the tug in her chest that had so often led her to the best salvage or the safest routes, and let her feet turn towards it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Half an hour later they were staring at a tree.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you think this is?” Lyra said curiously, pacing around it. It was huge, twice the size of any tree Rey had ever seen before - though admittedly she hadn’t explored D’Qar much before leaving with Ben, Lyra and Chewbacca. It was old and blasted and grey, with no leaves; it felt as ancient as the sands, and it rang like a gong when Lyra touched it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s that noise?” Rey said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can’t hear anything.” Lyra disappeared behind the enormous trunk. “Ooh. Rey, there’s a door.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Wait!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Too late,” Lyra said cheerfully. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey shot round the other side of the tree and dived into the trunk behind her. “You are the least cautious person I’ve ever </span>
  <em>
    <span>met</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she said, trying to calm her racing heart. “No wonder your mother asked me to look out for you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She worries,” Lyra smiled, and patted the wall. It was very dark inside the tree, only a faint light filtering in through the rift that Lyra and Rey had passed through. There was plenty of space within the hollow trunk - Rey supposed that not all Jedi were slim, small, or human - and there were dim shapes against the walls, but Rey sensed nothing living, or hostile. “I brought a torch.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course you brought a torch,” Rey murmured, as Lyra lit up the inside of the tree. It was filled with books - real books, not even written on flimsi, but on some ancient substance that crackled when Rey picked one up gingerly and opened it. Both women sneezed at the dust that rose. “This place feels… important. Can you read that?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra shook her head, peering over Rey’s shoulder. She was a good half a head shorter than Rey, and her cheek brushed Rey’s shoulder as she squinted at the book, holding the light directly over it. “It must be in some very old form of Aurebesh. It might not even be Basic. Threepio could help, maybe.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey turned over the pages. Writing gave way to drawings and diagrams; a Nautolan bearing a lightsaber staff, a Devaronian Jedi holding the hands of a smaller person within his own, rays of light gleaming around their joined hands, a cut on the smaller person’s hand glowing harder than the rest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Maybe it’s a how-to guide,” Lyra said. “Mamá told me that Luke Skywalker told Lor San Tekka something about searching for the foundations of the Force, before he left.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I have no idea what that means.” Rey continued to turn over pages. None of the symbols meant anything to her; the fact that Lyra, who was so clever and well-informed, couldn’t read them either was small comfort. If it had been modern-day Basic written in large print Aurebesh Rey would have been just as stumped as she was now. If Ben or Leia didn’t consider themselves Jedi, and Luke Skywalker preferred invisibility to facing his nephew, how was Rey supposed to learn? She couldn’t even read the guide the Force had led her to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What made you choose this book to pick up?” Lyra asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nothing. It was just there.” Rey looked at Lyra. She had shrewd brown eyes that were always darting around looking for new things, new information, movement; but now they were still, and that caught Rey’s attention more than anything else. “There are still coincidences, with the Force, right? Sometimes stuff just happens.” She thought of some of the things that had happened within the past month. “You can’t tell me all of this was </span>
  <em>
    <span>meant </span>
  </em>
  <span>to happen.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra’s jaw hardened. “Like Hosnia?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Rey swallowed, a parade of clumsy words caught on her tongue, and Lyra’s mouth softened. She looked back down at the book. “I don’t think that, no. I don’t think the Force </span>
  <em>
    <span>means </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything to happen. I think that’s just… something people say to comfort themselves. The Force is a lot bigger than intention. But it has currents, like the sea. And I think you can sense those and I think that’s what drew you here. So if you picked up the book because you’re swimming with the current, then maybe something about this book particularly is important.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can’t read,” Rey pointed out. Ben had started introducing her to the alphabet, but both writing and reading were slow and clumsy things to start, and it was hard to want to learn when Ben was so clearly distracted by pain and hanging on to his patience with both hands and a lot of kindness. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It has a lot of pictures,” Lyra said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey laughed, somewhat against her will, and turned over another page, and then another, and then several more at once - and then the same kind of note that rang in her mind when Lyra touched the tree rang out again and she scrabbled back until the book fell open to a full-page drawing in black and grey ink.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A lot of pictures,” she repeated. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It looks like a person,” Lyra said, peering closer at the drawing. “Two halves of a person, in black and white, but - the same person. And that must be a lightsaber.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think it’s more than that,” Rey said slowly. “And less. And more.” She looked at the facing page, and matched, in her head, the shape of the island’s pinnacle to the silhouette drawn and labelled there. The old familiar tug pulled behind her ribcage. “I think I know where we can find the real thing.” She closed the book carefully. “We can come back for this, probably?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If it belongs to anyone, it’s probably Luke,” Lyra said. “If there’s anyone else here, I haven’t seen them. And I don’t see why Luke would want to stop you visiting.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey put the book back on the shelf. “If I’d gone to hide on a secret hermit island, I probably wouldn’t be keen on visitors.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Let me rephrase,” Lyra said. “If Ben isn’t done shouting at Uncle Luke yet, then Chewbacca and Artoo haven’t even got started, and believe me, they aren’t any happier with him than Ben is. Luke won’t have time to tell you to get out of his library. He’ll be too busy begging Artoo not to set him on fire.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey smiled. “All right.” She led the way out of the tree.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Where now?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Up,” Rey said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>More</span>
  </em>
  <span> stairs?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey shook her head. “You need more exercise.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I get a normal amount of exercise. Just because I haven’t spent my life out-daredevilling the Boonta Eve Classic in broken-down Imperial star destroyers -”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think that’s even a word -”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“You know what I mean,” Lyra said, and they both laughed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a pause while they climbed up towards the distant pinnacle, passing tumbledown stone huts and the occasional shrine, observed only by squawking porgs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“There’s a climbing club, back on base,” Lyra said. “I used to climb when we were on Yavin IV, except I always went a bit too far and Poe kept having to come and get me. It was fun. If you like climbing, do you want to join?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Rey thought about the weight of people’s stares and the sheer noise of all the people on the D’Qar base thinking, all at once. Poe kept trying to encourage her to make friends, and had (Rey suspected) introduced her to Ben’s crewmate Rose who had a sister in the bomber squad for that specific purpose. Rose was very nice, and everyone else Rey had met was very nice, but there were a lot of them, and new people were overwhelming. Rey was learning to shield, thanks to General Organa and a lot of strange and nebulous practice picturing things that never seemed to do anything until quite suddenly it did, but her shields were not effective enough yet, and she wasn’t sufficiently used to being surrounded by people yet, to seek them out without an anchor.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But having friends was - nice, even if they weren’t all like Lyra. Rey was reasonably convinced that no-one was quite like Lyra. And if she had an anchor, it would be nice -</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Only if you want to,” Lyra said casually. Rey realised she had been silent too long.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Only if you come with me,” Rey said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Deal,” Lyra said, and high-fived Rey. And then she explained what a high-five was.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time Lyra had finished explaining, with detours into other cultures’ greetings and congratulatory hand gestures, they had reached the pinnacle. Here there was less drystone walling, and more that had been carved out of the rock; there was little for grass to cling to, but moss clung to crevices where it could. The whole thing was damp and slick, not as if it rained, but more like the clouds had cradled this place, and left behind cold clear dew on every surface.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The porgs were ubiquitous.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can’t keep a good bird down,” Lyra observed breathlessly, and then yelped as she slipped on a step and crashed to hands and knees. Rey whirled and grabbed for her, but she was already wincing and getting to her feet, inspecting the heels of her hands. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“You’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>bleeding</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s nothing a bit of antiseptic won’t handle. They’re only scraped, look.” Lyra smiled at Rey, and showed her hands. Rey took them carefully and peered at them. There was no dirt in the scrapes, and only a few beads of bright red blood; torn and scraped skin showed white and pink against the pale fawn of Lyra’s palms, but it was nothing serious. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Be careful,” Rey said, letting go of Lyra’s hands.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I will,” Lyra said. “So long as you are.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not the one hurling myself into strange trees or falling down the stairs.” Rey looked up at the great stone archway before them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t tell me you have a bad feeling about this,” Lyra teased.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Rey said. “But it’s… strange.” Like that gong note from before, only deeper, more pervasive, below the threshold for human hearing; it echoed, it resonated, deep in Rey’s bones.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why don’t you take the torch,” Lyra said, “and I’ll follow you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The steps led into a deep, dark hall, not so much carved from the cavern at the pinnacle of the island as coaxed out of it, curling and winding shapes emerging from the rock and vanishing into it to the point where you could hardly tell where the natural rock ended and the carving began. Rey touched them, and thought of what Lyra had said about currents, and the sea below, and the lake on Takodana, by the temples that Maz Kanata had made a haven. At one end of the hall there was a skylight, and below it some kind of pool set into the flat, level floor; beyond that was an enormous window onto the sea, nothing between the rock and the horizon, and a great prow of rough stone that reached into the air.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s like - a meditation hall, or something,” Lyra said, in a soft, hushed voice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you feel something?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No - Maybe. I don’t know.” She touched the wall, and one of her hands went to her breastbone over her blue coat and away again. “I’m not the Force-sensitive one. Can you feel anything?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I - Yes.” Rey closed her eyes, and saw laughing children in grey tunics darting around adults in robes, and heard the humming of something deep and powerful, and sensed, far below, something else calling and drawing. She frowned without knowing why she frowned, and moved forward into the hall. “But I don’t know what it is.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That makes two of us.” Lyra drew close to Rey, and their steps echoed in tandem until they reached the pool, and an electric shock of recognition went through Rey.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Here,” she said softly, kneeling down next to the mosaic-lined pool, a perfect copy of the drawing in the book beneath six inches of clear cold water. “Here’s what we were looking for. I wonder what it means.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra sat down next to her, crossing her legs. “Maybe this is where the currents flow strongest,” she suggested. “Maybe… lots of Jedi meditated here over time, and the memory of them pulled you here.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Places don’t remember people.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you actually think that, or are you just saying it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey opened her mouth, and thought of the star destroyers on Jakku, the wrecks she had walked away from and the rooms she had refused to break into even knowing they were probably rich with salvage, because something drew her away. She closed her mouth again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In the silence, Lyra turned her hands palm-upward on her thighs and closed her eyes. Rey tried to copy her, but she kept feeling cold stone and cool air and sensing something beyond her understanding instead of… connecting with the Force, or whatever.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what the Force is,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be listening for.” She rubbed her face with frustration. “Ben tried to explain it to me, but it was - I didn’t understand it.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gibberish,” Lyra said with cheerful brutality, opening her eyes. “I overheard. I didn’t want to embarrass Ben, because he does know a lot about old-style Jedi tradition and philosophy, probably more than anyone who wasn’t raised in the Temple - and I’m pretty sure that just leaves old Master Quinlan and Master Ahsoka, and Master Ahsoka is like a mystery wrapped in a hundred layers of more mystery and can’t explain anything without being obscure, and Master Quinlan is cranky.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Crankier than Ben?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Depends on the day, the phase of the moon, whether his joints are hurting him, and whether Aunt Leia’s been rude about his misspent youth again.” Lyra stretched her arms out carefully. “But my point is, Ben grew up with the Force surrounding him. He’s never known anything else, ever. He’s never not been aware of it. And kind of often that’s been dangerous for him, and even more often it’s just been too much, which is why he keeps leaving his lightsaber in his bedside drawer and spends all his time studying reading about philosophy, because that’s distance, and he needs distance. But it means he doesn’t explain things very clearly, unless you also have a background in academic philosophy.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He keeps leaving his lightsaber in his bedside drawer?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Literally all the time. He once forgot it in a smuggling compartment on the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Falcon </span>
  </em>
  <span>and had to refile his flight plan.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey shook her head and tried to imagine a galaxy in which she’d feel safe enough to leave her primary weapon out of her sight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The Force belongs to all of us,” Lyra said, trailing her fingers in the water of the pool. “It’s part of all of us. It’s in everything that lives, and everything that dies returns to it, and feeds the future. It’s neither good nor evil, it isn’t purely light or dark.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What about the Knights of Ren?” Rey remembered the scene on Starkiller; Finn sprawled on the snow, motionless, Ben’s hand tumbling through the air, cut from his arm. Seeing the pain the Knights had inflicted on her friends, knowing the tortures they had tried out on herself and on Poe, she was confident there was nothing good about them. The medbay had wasted an entire litre of bacta on wounds of Rey’s that would have healed, but the mere fact that they would have healed didn’t change the fact that they’d been inflicted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did the Force make them do what they did?” Lyra said. She was bathing her hands in the pool now. “Or was it their choice? There are always choices. No matter how long someone’s been marinating in the Dark Side, there can always be choices. Darth Vader’s story shows that.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“You’ll have to tell it to me some time.” Rey watched Lyra’s hands, the blood twisting away from the palms. “Isn’t that holy water?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“It’s not too holy to clean a wound with.” Lyra drew her hands out and shook them dry. “If you close your eyes, Rey, what can you feel outside that’s living?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“If I shut my eyes all I can feel is stone, and it’s very cold and hard.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra laughed. “But what is there that’s living? Tell me about it.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Rey closed her eyes, and reached out for life. She felt it first, and most vibrantly, in Lyra, sitting not two feet away from her; she felt her heartbeat, and the echo of her laughter, the rhythm of her breath, a faint sweet singing entwined with her heart, harmonising with the low vibration of the hall itself. Outside she heard the hiss of grass, the fluttering wings of porgs; dimly and distantly she picked up the clashing horn call of Ben’s argument far below, the roar and grumble that was Chewbacca, high strident cries she did not know. In the sea strange glittering mail things moved, things that must be fish with their pellucid eyes and quick slick movement, and something - something deeper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Deeper?” Lyra said, and Rey realised she had been speaking out loud. “Deeper like - bigger?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not… bigger like </span>
  <em>
    <span>size</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Rey said, stumbling. “It’s like the tree, only - only it’s not like the tree, it’s… It wants.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“What does it want?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Rey said. “I don’t know, but it’s strange. It pulls. But not like the tree. I just followed the tree. This feels like it’s actually… pulling me on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“It wants you,” Lyra suggested. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s strong.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to alarm you or anything,” Lyra said. “But I think you should open your eyes.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey opened her eyes, and instantly felt dizzy. She swayed where she sat, and put a hand behind her to catch herself. “I don’t like that.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Well, I think it was probably the Dark Side,” Lyra said. “And given that there’s supposed to be a powerful Dark Side well at the bottom of the old Temple in Coruscant, and another one on Grandmaster Yoda’s hideout on Dagobah, I have to question Jedi logic in putting all their most sacred temples on the top of </span>
  <em>
    <span>sinkholes</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rey stared at her. “You mean I went to the Dark Side?” she said, hearing a note of panic in her voice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, I mean you looked at the Dark Side,” Lyra said. “And then you looked away.” She shrugged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Rey yanked at her own hair. “I don’t even know what the Dark Side is.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s still the Force,” Lyra said. “And it’s… what Ben said was it is what you bring to it. It’s what you give to it. If you choose to act on everything that’s the worst of you, every instinctive fear, every petty hate, then that’s what you get back. And when you’re full of despair, or when you believe you don’t have any other choice, or when you think you know better than everyone else and can make decisions for them, the Dark Side is there for you, and it will give you what you think you want - except it’s never what you truly want. It will give you strength, but only if you’re weak enough to promise it anything, no matter the cost, when in the real world, the cost </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>matters. Even if you were trying to do something good with it, you can’t acheive peaceful or loving ends. You can’t do surgery with a poisoned scalpel.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t get it.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Darth Vader thought he could save his wife from dying in childbirth,” Lyra said. “Any good man would want to, right? But he was willing to sacrifice anything for that. Including the principles she’d already repeatedly offered her life for. And he was blinded by his own terror, so he never looked for the other choices. Fear controlled him, and he chose the Dark, and lost everything.” Lyra looked back at the pool.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey shivered. “If she survived, how would she have forgiven him?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Lyra said. “Because she didn’t. Survive, I mean.” There was a short pause, and then she sighed and shifted. “That’s a secret, by the way.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Everything you just told me?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“No, only the story of Darth Vader.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>There was a long silence.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I could hear singing,” Rey volunteered, untwisting her legs and stretching them out. “Coming from you. But it sounded like the hall, only not like the hall.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra looked at her in surprise, then coloured slightly and said: “Oh.” She tugged at her scarf and coat, and pulled a necklace from under her shirt: a plain silver chain, holding a translucent crystal about the size of Lyra’s thumb. “It was probably this.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Rey closed her eyes and listened, and heard that same faint and lovely melody. “Yes. What is it?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Kyber crystal.” Lyra tucked it away. “It’s my mother’s. Her mother gave it to her when she was little. She gave it to me when - So, when Senator Calrissian and I escaped Hosnia, we went to D’Qar. But Starkiller was still live and pointing at the Ileenium system, so my parents sent me away. And Mama gave me the necklace then.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey felt a memory, but not from her perspective; from Lyra’s. Lyra’s parents kissing her goodbye on the tarmac at D’Qar, a necklace looped around her throat, </span>
  <em>
    <span>trust the Force</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the echo of - not a memory, but a story, another woman, younger, and a daughter, younger still - and tearing, anticipatory grief. And then Rey remembered something on her own account: the mess on D’Qar, the evening before they decrypted the map Poe had collected, and the way Lyra’s smiling face and clever eyes had flickered when she said </span>
  <em>
    <span>I have nothing to do but be mad at my parents</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You thought they were choosing to die,” Rey said, before she could stop herself, and Lyra blinked sharply. “And leave you behind. Like your grandmother.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Lyra said simply, and blinked again. “I won’t ask how you know about my grandmother, but you should probably never tell my mother you figured that one out until she tells you herself.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was another pause, this one more uncomfortable.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why do you believe in the Force?” Rey said. “If you can’t use it yourself.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why do I believe in the wind?” Lyra answered, and smiled. “I can see the trees move.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey looked down into the pool and thought of the book, the drawings, Lyra’s heartbeat, </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s in everything that lives</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the things that felt like the opposite of that grasping dark, of those wrecks she had never touched: bending BB-8’s antenna back into shape, making her old lost speeder run. And then she thought of Lyra’s bleeding hands.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Give me your hands,” she said, and Lyra offered them to her; and for the second time, Rey cradled Lyra’s hands in her own. The skin was still scraped and raw but there was little blood left; she pressed the tips of her thumbs lightly into Lyra’s thumb joints until Lyra’s palms opened up with the slight wince of superficially wounded flesh, and then she closed her eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey’s hands knew what shape BB-8’s antenna was supposed to be, though Rey had never seen a BB-class droid before. The Falcon’s hyperdrive sang one true note in Rey’s ears, and she could tell it from false. And skin, too, flesh and bone knew what wholeness felt like, and everything that lived could be in tune with the Force.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra’s soft indrawn breath broke Rey’s concentration.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Um, does that mean it hurts?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“No, it means it feels really </span>
  <em>
    <span>odd</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey opened her eyes, and smiled reflexively at the wonder in Lyra’s. “Did I fix it?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Most of the way,” Lyra said, “which given you have literally </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>consciously used the Force before seems like a huge step.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey looked at Lyra’s hands. The rawness had fled, leaving behind only the slight pink of new skin. “I could probably do better.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Practice makes perfect,” Lyra suggested. “You’ll forgive me for not falling down the stairs again.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, please don’t do that,” Rey said. “Finn is more than enough to worry about.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Lyra smiled. They fell into silence for a second, and then Lyra turned her hands over and squeezed Rey’s lightly before scrambling to her feet. “Let’s go and see if Luke’s decided to be visible yet.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“My bet’s on no,” Rey said. “If my family showed up to yell at me after ten years on a deserted planet, I wouldn’t be at home to visitors either. And if I had the option of going invisible -”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“You could probably learn how,” Lyra said. “But if we can’t catch him it will be that much harder to do.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rey grinned.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>They had to walk all the way back to the rough plaza where they had started before they found Ben. He didn’t look great, which was to say that he was sitting on the wet floor with one elbow propped on his bent knee, fidgeting with his stump and the new prosthetic hand, and though he was talking his voice was cracked and miserable and he didn’t look up when Rey and Lyra came down the steps. Half his hair had come loose and was hanging forward, so it was hard to see his face. Chewbacca was sitting next to him, and Ben was leaning heavily against him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“ - I just think you would have done a better job,” Ben was saying, plainly exhausted. “A better job for that poor stormtrooper kid. His spine’s half metal now. Never picked up a lightsaber before and he was willing to fight the Knights of Ren to save a girl he met maybe a week before, and look what he gets for it. A coma. I couldn’t keep him in one piece. I couldn’t keep myself in one piece. I’m a shit Jedi, I’m not </span>
  <em>
    <span>even </span>
  </em>
  <span>a Jedi, but the way you left things, when they needed help, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I was all there was</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something yanked on Rey’s heart. “You did what you could,” she said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ben’s head jerked up, but he smiled wearily when he saw her. “Thanks, Rey. That’s kind of you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not kind,” Rey said. “It’s just true.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“I prefer true, honestly.” Ben slumped against his uncle. “Uncle Chewie, can you give me a hand up? I’ve had it with Uncle Luke. This is - ” his voice rasped and croaked - “some banthafucking bullshit.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Finally</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Chewbacca yowled, climbing to his feet and lifting up Ben - who was massive, in Rey’s eyes - by his shoulders as if the man weighed no more than a tooka kitten.</span>
  <em>
    <span> Let’s go back to the Falcon and leave your uncle to stew. He deserves it. I’m thinking we’d better just tell Leia he fell off a cliff a while ago. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She’ll know that isn’t true.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Chewbacca and Ben limped off, bickering mildly. Lyra and Rey were left in the rapidly diminishing silence. Rey looked at Lyra’s face, and was surprised to see it had turned stormy, her eyes fixed on Ben’s back. Lyra jerked her head away, and took two steps out into the centre of the plaza, looking round.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m disappointed in you, Uncle Luke,” she said. Her voice broke in half and she sniffled with a ferocity as much at odds with the elegant senatorial aide Rey had met on D’Qar as the cheerfully dressed explorer who had scrambled up the heights with her. “Are you really too selfish to say you’re sorry? Too fixated on every mistake you’ve ever made to accept forgiveness?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Lyra,” Rey said, without knowing what the rest of the sentence was.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’d like it if you’d call me Smiley, Rey,” Lyra interrupted, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and smudging eyeliner everywhere. “Sorry. I need to go after Ben.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She hurried off down the steps. Rey refrained from telling her to mind her footing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Instead, she stood in the middle of the plaza and closed her eyes and thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s in everything that lives</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She breathed in, and out, and in, and out; like a piece of delicate electronics, tiny but powerfully valuable, hidden among components of much greater value; hard to see if you looked closely, but there, if you calmed your eyes -</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The second heartbeat came as no surprise, and when she turned and half-opened her eyes, she saw the smoky flickering shadow of a man painted all in shades of grey except for greying dirty blond hair and piercing blue eyes. When she blinked he was gone; but she refocused, and there he was again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s in everything that lives</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“There’s always a choice,” Rey said. “And if you don’t choose to show up and make yourself accountable to the people you left behind out of selfishness or weakness, then you’re just giving into that sinkhole down at the bottom of the cliffs. That’s just offering up your despair because it’s the easy thing to do.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They don’t want to see me,” said a rough, low voice that must be Luke Skywalker’s. “You must have heard how angry Ben is - whoever you are.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He has a right to his anger,” Rey said. “If you were going to hide from him, you could at least have had the decency to run away, instead of hanging around. It’s not like he didn’t know you were there.” She blinked and tried to refocus, and found that trying too hard to see him gave her a splitting headache. “So instead you stood there and let him grieve all the bad things that have happened that you were willing to stand by and let happen, and you wouldn’t even offer him a hand in comfort.” She folded her arms. “This was a waste of time.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When she turned around and walked away, she knew Luke Skywalker was following her. She scrambled down to join Lyra, still trailing behind Ben and Chewbacca.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I hope you left him there,” Lyra said. Her eyes were reddened.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uh, I don’t think I’m that lucky.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra reached out and took Rey’s hand, and squeezed it tightly. Rey didn’t let go.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>They had reached the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Falcon</span>
  </em>
  <span>’s gangway when there was a scuttle of pebbles and a cough, and Ben whirled round with a blaster in one hand, which he immediately lowered. Rey turned, and saw the same man she had seen in shades of smoke, only full colour, distinguishable. Whatever he did to hide himself must have only been partially effective when she looked the right way.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I never thought I’d see the day Han would let you off-planet with the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Falcon </span>
  </em>
  <span>but without him,” Luke Skywalker said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, well,” Ben said. “I had to leave my </span>
  <em>
    <span>Firebird </span>
  </em>
  <span>in his custody, so we’re even. Did you come here to chit-chat about ships? Because if so, I have a hot date with the fresher and some painkillers.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Well, I have suggestions for the arm,” Luke said, and hesitated. “Though I’m not sure it should still be hurting this badly.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“It’s been less than a month,” Ben said, and scowled horribly. “And your hand wasn’t cut off by an </span>
  <em>
    <span>incompetent</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I have genuinely never seen a worse-built lightsaber. Uncle Luke, what do you </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey gripped Lyra’s hand tighter. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Choices</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thought, </span>
  <em>
    <span>choose better</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and wondered if she was hoping for Ben’s sake or for the sake of her own family, wherever they were, whoever they were.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Luke Skywalker’s eyes flashed towards her and Lyra for a second, and then his shoulders slumped.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I want to say sorry,” he said. “I am sorry, Ben. I thought I had only broken everything, by Falling a second time, and almost attacking you. Crash-landing here was an accident, but I came to feel that the failure of my X-Wing might have been a blessing. I thought my time had passed, my task had been fulfilled, and I was doing more harm than good by clinging on. I’m sorry, Ben.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey held her breath.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ben looked at Chewbacca. “What do you think?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>I think we can at least get out of the rain</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Chewbacca bawled. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Everything else we can discuss in due time. You still look like rancid milk porridge and your mother made me promise to take care of you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>fine</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And Dameron asked me to keep an eye out for you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra snickered, bright and unexpected, but her eyes were not friendly where they rested on Luke.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I thought you and Poe broke up,” Luke Skywalker said, with obvious puzzlement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“I refuse to entertain this ridiculous discussion,” Ben announced, aiming for his mother’s dignity, and stumbled into the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Falcon</span>
  </em>
  <span>. A muffled yell announced that he had immediately either banged his head or stubbed his toe on something.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lyra and Chewbacca followed him hastily up the gangway. Luke Skywalker stood, indecisive, at its foot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rey walked up behind him as quietly as she knew how and poked him very hard in the back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t cop out,” she said, when he looked round. “Not now. Get up that gangway.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke Skywalker raised one unkempt eyebrow at her and said: “Or what?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or we’ll fly away,” Rey said. “And we won’t come back. And you’ll be alone forever, and what’s worse, you’ll know you had another choice, and you didn’t make it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Neither of them said anything for a minute. Rey’s eyes watered as she held Luke’s, but she didn’t blink.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are we related?” Luke said. “That was impressively unpleasant for someone I’ve never met before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“I don’t care,” Rey said, prodding him in the back again. “Get inside. You can always leave later, if you chicken out.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You do remind me of Leia,” Luke said, and walked up the gangway.</span>
</p>
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